Innovative Facility : Operator for Oceanside Homeless Center Selected

The Women’s Resource Center of Oceanside was selected Tuesday to manage the city’s innovative trailer park for homeless families.

The Oceanside City Council members, sitting as the Community Development Commission, voted unanimously and without discussion to award the contract to the women’s center. City Housing Committee members Councilwomen Lucy Chavez and Melba Bishop, had previously recommended that the center be given the contract based on its successful nine-year track record as manager of the Oceanside Battered Women’s Shelter.

The Escondido-based North County Interfaith Council had also submitted a proposal to run the homeless shelter, which will consist of 15 trailers situated on a 22-acre site on the grounds of the San Luis Rey Mission. Families whose members have been screened for substance abuse, criminal records and psychiatric problems will be eligible to stay in the shelter for up to 60 days.

‘More in Tune’

After the meeting, Chavez said that she and Bishop had chosen the Women’s Resource Center because “they seem to be more in tune with the type of shelter and the type of occupants we intended.” Chavez said they felt the center’s staff had gained experience, through working with battered women and children, with many of the similar problems that might arise with homeless families.

“We’re determined to make this work and to make it as non-offensive as possible to the surrounding neighborhood,” Bishop said. “It’s a prototype for all others. . . . If this doesn’t work, there won’t be another.”

The experimental program is limited to three years, which is the duration of the lease on the mission site, which will open this fall. But members of Oceanside’s Task Force for the Homeless, which conceived the plan, hope that, if all goes well, the community will recognize the need to contribute land and money for a permanent facility.

The city has allocated $300,000 for the shelter’s operation, but City Housing Director Richard Goodman estimated that it will cost up to $450,000 to effectively run the program for three years. Women’s Resource Center spokeswoman Sharon Newcomb said Tuesday that the agency is prepared to raise the rest of the money needed through government grants and community donations.

Recruitment of Staff

One of the agency’s first tasks will be to recruit personnel to staff the homeless shelter, Newcomb said. The center will seek a full-time shelter administrator who will have overall responsibility for the project, a project supervisor to handle day-to-day operations, and five caseworkers with experience in providing counseling, support and dealing with domestic disputes.

Newcomb said the focus of the program will be to teach homeless families how to function in the world around them and to make use of available services. “Our goal is not to make an insulated community out of this but help them reintegrate into the community,” she said. “We feel it’s real important the clients make their own decisions and take action for themselves.”

Among the highlights of the program is a class in “survival skills” that will be offered free by MiraCosta College. The daily class will include instruction on nutrition, budget and home management, balancing checking accounts and utilizing community resources.

Case workers will review each family’s situation with them, and try to pinpoint the factors that contributed to their homelessness and recommend courses of action to avoid those problems, according to the proposal. Weekly classes on landlord-tenant rights and responsibilities, including instruction on “tenant etiquette” will be offered at the center, as well as job evaluations and referrals.

A child-care system will be set up among the residents, and school-age children will attend classes in the Oceanside Unified School District. Under the proposal, the staff of the Women’s Resource Center also will provide training to teachers to heighten their sensitivity to the traumas and insecurities that homeless children experience.